Archive for the ‘U.S. Presidents’ Category

Tucker: If we erase the past, prepare for the consequences

August 15, 2017 Tucker Carlson’s Thoughts. Slavery is undoubtedly evil. But remember George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and 41 of the 56 people who signed the Declaration of Independence owned slaves. Should we no longer preserve our institutions and just dismiss them as evil?

Editors’ note: In light of the ongoing controversy surrounding the Trump campaign’s alleged “collusion” with the Russian government during the 2016 US presidential election, which now involvesTrump Jr. daring to talk to a Russian woman, Frontpage has deemed it important to bring attention to a forgotten story of verifiable scheming with the Kremlin — by the late Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy against President Ronald Reagan. We are reprinting below Frontpage editor Jamie Glazov’s 2008 interview with Dr. Paul Kengor, who unearthed documentation detailing Kennedy’s outreach to the KGB and Soviet leader Yuri Andropov during the height of the Cold War, in which the Democratic Senator offered to collude with the Soviets to undermine President Reagan.

Ted Kennedy and the KGB.
Frontpage Magazine,May 15, 2008.

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Paul Kengor, the author of the New York Times extended-list bestsellerGod and Ronald Reaganas well asGod and George W. BushandThe Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism.He is also the author of the first spiritual biography of the former first lady,God and Hillary Clinton: A Spiritual Life.He is a professor of political science and director of the Center for Vision and Values at Grove City College.

FP:Paul Kengor, welcome back to Frontpage Interview.

Kengor:Always great to be back, Jamie.

FP:We’re here today to revisit Ted Kennedy’s reaching out to the KGB during the Reagan period. Refresh our readers’ memories a bit.

Kengor:The episode is based on a document produced 25 years ago this week. I discussed it with you inour earlier interviewback in November 2006. In my book,The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, I presented a rather eye-opening May 14, 1983 KGB document on Ted Kennedy. The entire document, unedited, unabridged, is printed in the book, as well as all the documentation affirming its authenticity. Even with that, today, almost 25 years later, it seems to have largely remained a secret.

FP:Tell us about this document.

Kengor:It was a May 14, 1983 letter from the head of the KGB, Viktor Chebrikov, to the head of the USSR, the odious Yuri Andropov, with the highest level of classification. Chebrikov relayed to Andropov an offer from Senator Ted Kennedy, presented by Kennedy’s old friend and law-school buddy, John Tunney, a former Democratic senator from California, to reach out to the Soviet leadership at the height of a very hot time in the Cold War. According to Chebrikov, Kennedy was deeply troubled by the deteriorating relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, which he believed was bringing us perilously close to nuclear confrontation. Kennedy, according to Chebrikov, blamed this situation not on the Soviet leadership but on the American president—Ronald Reagan. Not only was the USSR not to blame, but, said Chebrikov, Kennedy was, quite the contrary, “very impressed” with Andropov.

The thrust of the letter is that Reagan had to be stopped, meaning his alleged aggressive defense policies, which then ranged from the Pershing IIs to the MX to SDI, and even his re-election bid, needed to be stopped. It was Ronald Reagan who was the hindrance to peace. That view of Reagan is consistent with things that Kennedy said and wrote at the time, including articles in sources like Rolling Stone (March 1984) and in a speeches like his March 24, 1983 remarks on the Senate floor the day after Reagan’s SDI speech, which he lambasted as “misleading Red-Scare tactics and reckless Star Wars schemes.”

He Fights

July 13, 2017

By Evan Sayet Evan Sayetis the author ofThe KinderGarden of Eden: How The Modern Liberal Thinks. His lecture to the Heritage Foundation on this same topic remains, some ten years later, by far the single most viewed lecture in their history. Evan can be reached at contactevansayet@gmail.com.

JULY 17, 2017

He Fights

Evan Sayet

7/13/2017 1:57:00 PM – Evan Sayet

My Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I’m not bothered by Donald Trump’s lack of decorum. They ask if I don’t think his tweets are “beneath the dignity of the office.” Here’s my answer:

We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency. We tried statesmanship. Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized “collegiality” as John McCain? We tried propriety – has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney? And the results were always the same.

This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob.

I don’t find anything “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper” about Barack Obama’s lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatreds because racial hatreds serve the Democratic Party. I don’t see anything “dignified” in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks. I don’t see anything “statesman-like” in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent. Yes, Obama was “articulate” and “polished” but in no way was he in the least bit “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper.”

The Left has been engaged in a war against America since the rise of the Children of the ‘60s. To them, it has been an all-out war where nothing is held sacred and nothing is seen as beyond the pale. It has been a war they’ve fought with violence, the threat of violence, demagoguery and lies from day one – the violent take-over of the universities – till today.

The problem is that, through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war. While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, collegiality and propriety.

With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end. Donald Trump is America’s first wartime president in the Culture War.

Trump Grinds the G20, the Bureaucratic Underground, and CNN into Hamburger

This was a week of startling contrasts. The President reasserted (against a decades-long leftist attack on it) the significant achievements of Western civilization and the need to vigorously defend it. Hisspeech prefaced the G20 meetingin Hamburg, whereleftists rioted, burned, and looted while the G20 leaders ponced about and wined and dined in style, apparently oblivious to the havoc which theiropen border policiesand multiculturalist mindset had birthed. As Trump worked successfully on trade and defense issues in Europe, his administration was quietly plugging security leaks and maladministration in our own bureaucratic underground.

A. Poland

Western Europe has been blinded by ideological nonsense. On the one hand it has worked assiduously to separate religion and politics. On the other hand, it has welcomed in hordes of Islamists. In contrast, to quoteZoltan Balog, Hungary’s Minister for Human Resources “in the case of Islam it is religion that determines politics.”

Eastern Europe, in particular Poland, was the right place to defend Western culture and values. And Trump did so brilliantly to the great delight of the thousands who flocked to hear him.

The Tyranny of the Administrative State

Government by unelected experts isn’t all that different from the ‘royal prerogative’ of 17th-century England, argues constitutional scholar Philip Hamburger.

By

John Tierney

June 9, 2017 Mr. Tierney is a contributing editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal

New York

What’s the greatest threat to liberty in America? Liberals rail at Donald Trump’s executive orders on immigration and his hostility toward the press, while conservatives vow to reverse Barack Obama’s regulatory assault on religion, education and business. Philip Hamburger says both sides are thinking too small.

Like the blind men in the fable who try to describe an elephant by feeling different parts of its body, they’re not perceiving the whole problem:the enormous rogue beast known as the administrative state.

Sometimes called the regulatory state or the deep state, it is a government within the government, run by the president and the dozens of federal agencies that assume powers once claimed only by kings. In place of royal decrees, they issue rules and send out “guidance” letters like the one from an Education Department official in 2011 that stripped college students of due process when accused of sexual misconduct.

Unelected bureaucrats not only write their own laws, they also interpret these laws and enforce them in their own courts with their own judges. All this is in blatant violation of the Constitution, says Mr. Hamburger, 60, a constitutional scholar and winner of the Manhattan Institute’s Hayek Prize last year for his scholarly 2014 book, “Is Administrative Law Unlawful?” (Spoiler alert: Yes.)

“Essentially, much of the Bill of Rights has been gutted,” he says, sitting in his office at Columbia Law School. “The government can choose to proceed against you in a trial in court with constitutional processes, or it can use an administrative proceeding where you don’t have the right to be heard by a real judge or a jury and you don’t have the full due process of law. Our fundamental procedural freedoms, which once were guarantees, have become mere options.” ​

In volume and complexity, the edicts from federal agencies exceed the laws passed by Congress by orders of magnitude. “The administrative state has become the government’s predominant mode of contact with citizens,” Mr. Hamburger says. “Ultimately this is not about the politics of left or right. Unlawful government power should worry everybody.”

Congress and Obama Depleted the Military

The Trump budget would increase spending only 3%. With today’s threats, that’s not nearly enough.

U.S. and Australian soldiers at a military exercise in the Philippines, May 8.PHOTO:AFP/GETTY IMAGES

By

Dick Cheneyand

Liz Cheney

June 20, 2017

North Korea is making alarming progress in its ballistic-missile and nuclear-weapons programs. Russia and China are developing and fielding advanced weapons against which the U.S. may not be able to defend. Al Qaeda operates in more countries than ever. Islamic State is targeting the West and launching attacks throughout Europe and the Middle East. Iran is supporting terrorist organizations across the globe, modernizing its ballistic-missile and other capabilities and likely continuing to pursue nuclear weapons.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee last week that the U.S. is losing the military edge on which our security has long relied: “Today, every operating domain—including outer space, air, sea, undersea, land and cyberspace—is contested.”

Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, seconded that worry in written testimony for the same hearing: “Without sustained, sufficient and predictable funding,” he wrote, “I assess that within five years we will lose our ability to project power; the basis of how we defend the homeland, advance U.S. interests, and meet our alliance commitments.”

In short, the situation President Trump inherited is dire. America today faces an array of threats more serious and complex than at any time in the past 75 years.

President Barack Obama will step down after eight years as commander in chief with one of the most influential tenures leading the U.S. military, but not necessarily the political support of service members.

His moves to slim down the armed forces, move away from traditional military might and overhaul social policies prohibiting the service of minority groups have proven divisive in the ranks. His critics have accused him of trading a strong security posture for political points, and for allowing the rise of terrorists like the Islamic State group whom the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were supposed to silence.

But Obama’s supporters define him as the Nobel Peace Prize winner who ordered the elimination of Osama bin Laden and refocused military strategy while wrestling with an uncooperative Congress and unprecedented budget restrictions. They insist the military is more nimble now, and more prepared to deal with unconventional warfare against non-traditional threats across the globe.

More than half of troops surveyed in the latest Military Times/Institute for Veterans and Military Families poll said they have an unfavorable opinion of Obama and his two-terms leading the military. About 36 percent said they approve of his job as commander in chief.

Their complaints include the president’s decision to decrease military personnel (71 percent think it should be higher), his moves to withdraw combat troops from Iraq (59 percent say it made America less safe) and his lack of focus on the biggest dangers facing America (64 percent say China represents a significant threat to the U.S.)

As always, Rush can be counted on to give a detailed analysis of what is actually going on in the world of politics ! Be sure to read down to where Rush gives a quote from an article that Andrew McCarthy wrote in April of 20016 re Obama protecting Hillary and clearing her in the 2016 campaign regarding her “careless” handling of intelligence. (McCarthy’s letter is highlighted in black) Nancy

Rush Limbaugh: Obama Actually Did What Trump Is Accused of Doing

Wednesday on his nationally syndicated radio show, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh argued former President Barack Obama “actually did” what New York Timesreport has accused President Donald Trump of doing regarding an FBI investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

According to Limbaugh, Obama had the FBI back off of an investigation into Hillary Clinton.

All right, here’s (among many things) what’s going on. Here’s what Trump is alleged to have done here vis-a-vis the Comey memo. Comey memo says that Trump asked him to let it go. Let the Flynn investigation go. I can hope you see your way to let this go. He didn’t do anything. The guy… I love the guy, honest guy. Comey said, “Yeah, I can tell you honest guy, good guy.” And what Trump is alleged to have done is actually no different than what Barack Obama did in April last year when he made it known that he didn’t want Hillary prosecuted.

In fact, the Obama situation is actually worse. While Trump indicated he didn’t want Flynn charged, he did not order the case dropped, because it’s still going on. Trump indicated that he wanted Flynn not to be charged, but he did not order the case to be dropped. And the case continues. Grand juries have been impaneled now. In contrast, the FBI and the Department of Justice dropped the Hillary investigation just as Obama wanted them to, and they used exactly the rationales Obama used when he made his public statements.